A conventional locking mechanism for a slide assembly at a retracted status is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,033,805 and includes a locking member to restrict the rails of the drawer and the mediate rail, the mediate rail is connected with the cabinet rail. Another disclosure is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,398,041 B1 which includes a drawer slidably connected to the rails which are connected to columns. The locking mechanism is fixed to the columns. U.S. Pat. No. 6,883,884 B2 and 7,604,308 B2 are filed by the applicant of this application and include a latch which is located at the front end of the inner rail and when the rails are retracted, the latch is engaged with the fixed portion of the rails. U.S. Publication No. 2009/0294393 A1 owned by the applicant of this application discloses a quick activation device which allows the rails to be quickly locked or unlocked relative to the rack. The rails are automatically locked when the rails are retracted.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,364,244 B2 to Sandoval discloses a “User-controllable latching carrier rail system” and includes a movable latching member 212A in FIG. 3B which has a distal portion 310A fixed to a slide rail 302A. An intermediate portion 310B is located at an angle relative to the distal portion. A proximal portion 310C extends from the intermediate portion, and a handle 204 extends from the proximal portion. The proximal portion has a protrusion 308 so that the user directly operates the handle to deform the intermediate portion and the proximal portion relative to the slide rails, the protrusion can disengage from the locked status.
Obviously, there are many different arrangements for the locking devices of rails, and the applicant hereby invents a locking mechanism which is easily operated and different from the existed ones.